Finding New Use Cases For NFTs

We've all heard of NFTs. We know that the internet is going crazy for digital renderings of apes, and everyone seems to be on the hunt for the next big thing. 

Digital artwork has become a new commodity. People are buying and selling, sometimes for massive profits, what on the surface appear to be simple JPEGs of, well, all kinds of things. But it isn't these images that people are clambering to get their hands on, it's the token—more specifically, the non-fungible token—attached to each of these images.

An NFT is a unique digital token used as proof of ownership of these digital pieces of artwork. Images are attached to these NFTs on the blockchain and since there can only ever be one NFT owned by one person, whoever holds the NFT proves they own the original piece of art. 

NFTs work as proof of ownership. 

In much the same way a record label contract proves who owns the copyright to a song, an NFT proves the ownership of digital art. You can take illegal recordings of songs to enjoy in your own home, but you could never say you own those songs. You can take a screenshot of the JPEG attached to an NFT, but you can never say you own the original, unless you hold the NFT. 

But you most likely already understand how and why NFTs are being used in today's digital art world, or you probably wouldn't be reading this article. 

In this article, we want to discuss how we can apply the fundamentals of NFT technology (non-fungibility, transparent transaction history and proof of ownership capabilities) to other industries and explore different use cases outside of digital artwork.

Current NFT Use Cases

We've already touched on how NFTs are being used in the world of digital art to prove ownership. At the moment, that's the primary use case for this technology.

NFT projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks have forever ingrained themselves into the public ​​psyche thanks to their immense popularity and, more so, their astronomical price tags. A rare 'alien' CryptoPunk NFT recently sold for a whopping $23million.

The world of digital artwork NFTs has become the new Holy Land for crypto enthusiasts from all four corners of the internet. New NFT collections crop up on OpenSea every day, all vying to become the next big thing and to make their creators incredibly wealthy. 

All jokes aside, NFT technology has been proven to effectively establish and transfer ownership of digital assets in theory and practice. Billions of dollars worth of NFT transactions happen every week; people are using the tech, no matter what you think of the way they're currently using it. 

Event Ticketing

In the same way NFTs can prove ownership of digital art, organisers can use them to prove ownership of digital event tickets, which is why we've developed SeatlabNFT.

Let's stop to think about what an NFT is at the most basic level. 

1. NFTs are non-fungible. They are unique, no two are the same.
2. Anyone on the public blockchain ledger can quickly verify NFT ownership.

If you've ever purchased a ticket and used it to gain entry into an event, you'll know that these two things also apply to ticketing. 

Tickets must be unique. They must not be able to be copied, substituted or divided. In short, they must be non-fungible. This is currently achieved with unique serial numbers; no two tickets will ever have the same serial number otherwise there would be no way to tell if a ticket was valid or had already been used. Imagine 1,000 people showing up to an event, all with tickets that have nothing to differentiate them. How would you know which ones you'd already scanned?

The second thing is that staff must be able to verify the legitimacy of tickets at the gate quickly. QR codes are often the answer with legacy ticketing systems. In NFT ticketing, this is done using mobile Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology. The same system allows you to pay with Apple or Google Pay by tapping your smartphone against an NFC terminal in shops. When an event-goer has a SeatlabNFT NFT ticket in their mobile crypto wallet, all they have to do is tap their phone against an entry terminal, and in seconds it will scan the public ledger to check the validity of the ticket.

When you think of what you need event tickets to be capable of and what NFT technology does, the two match up perfectly. But it's the added extras that NFTs can offer that makes using the technology in event ticketing a fascinating prospect. 

Royalty splits

Similar to how the original creators of NFT artwork receive a royalty (often a few per cent) every time their creations are resold on the secondary market, artists and event organisers get a cut of secondary ticket sales. The secondary ticket market is currently the domain of ticket touts and scalpers who make massive profits buying tickets en masse and reselling them to fans for many times the original price once they are sold out. 

Royalty splits offer a way for artists and event organisers to regain control of the secondary market, taking money out of the pockets of scalpers and ensuring it goes back to the people it belongs to. 

Airdrops

Because NFT tickets are stored in a user's mobile crypto wallet, and the address is publicly available, artists and event organisers can airdrop perks and incentives to ticket holders directly. 

These perks can be other NFT collectables. The airdropped assets can be digital art, photo, videos, even audio clips. Because artists and event organisers can airdrop them to ticket holders after the event, they can be media captured from the event itself.

An example of this could be a rare 1-of-10 live recording of a musician's hit song or behind-the-scenes backstage footage. Like current NFT art collections, these rare NFTs could be traded on the open market and become valuable collectors' items themselves. 

The SeatlabNFT platform allows ticket sellers to attach these airdrops to NFT tickets and schedule them to be sent to holders on a future date. People can browse our marketplace and see which tickets have airdrops attached to them, incentivising purchasing these upgraded options. 

Event ticketing is perhaps one of the more compelling use cases outside of digital art for NFT technology. We're developing an NFT ticketing marketplace that is already attracting a lot of attention. If you want to know more about what we're doing, check out our blog, or sign up for early access on our website and get a look at what we're doing before the general public.

Real Estate

The current process of buying and selling property is long, drawn out over months, involves many different parties, and, most of all, is expensive. 

There's the buyer, the buyer's lawyer, the seller, the seller's lawyer, estate agents, building inspectors, accountants… The list goes on, each taking their cut just for you to have to constantly chase them up, ensuring they're doing the job you're paying a lot of money for them to do. Anyone who has ever bought a house will be able to relate to this, I'm sure. 

All of this hassle to ultimately change the name on the title deeds. 

After all, the house isn't going anywhere.

Using title deeds (either digital or physical) to prove and transfer property ownership is inherently inefficient in the 21st century. Paying lawyers exorbitant amounts of money to run background checks, prepare contracts, cross the Ts and dot the Is on what seems like a never-ending stream of paperwork isn't necessary when we have better ways to prove and transfer ownership of assets.  

Enter NFTs. By now, we all know that NFTs are incredibly efficient and effective ways of proving ownership of an asset. So, what if we implemented a system that turned NFTs into blockchain-based title deeds? 

The existence of a property and the exact details (boundaries, size, number of rooms, etc.) would only have to be verified once. This information would then be minted into an NFT, forever tied to that property. Once that happens, whoever owns the NFT, owns the property. The NFT could be transferred to a new owner in a matter of seconds, for a fraction of what it currently costs in fees to purchase a property. 

Emerging companies are helping people "NFT their homes" so that proving and transferring ownership in the future is as simple as sending a cryptocurrency transaction. 

ID Verification 

Using NFT tech for identity verification works similarly to real estate ownership, as we've explored above. 

Countries are already using systems for digital identity verification so people can perform tasks online and digitally sign legal documents using things like digital certificates installed on a user's browser. It works the same way websites use SSL certificates to verify legitimate websites.

Once these digital certificates are issued, they become proof of somebody's identity. The person will have to physically present their identity documents to a trusted third party who will then give them a digital certificate which they can use to prove their identity online going forward. 

Issuing NFTs for ID verification would work similarly, but once the NFT has been minted, there are many other benefits to using NFTs in this way. 

For starters, it would remove the need for a trusted third-party intermediary to verify the token's authenticity. Since all NFTs are stored on the publicly available blockchain, anybody could check its authenticity, undeniably proving the owner is who they say they are. 

Removing the need for an intermediary to maintain a centralised database of users would also increase privacy and reduce the risk of data breaches.

It would also mean that you could use the NFT to prove your identity anywhere as it wouldn't need to be checked against a database only certain authorities have access to. And where this use case really comes into its own is in the Metaverse. Secure, transparent identity verification will be essential if we all end up working and doing business in the Metaverse.

Companies like WISeKey allow the minting of NFT IDs that people can use to prove they are who they say they are. They can even reveal selected information about themselves if they wish.

"Users can establish a reputation on Metaverse through digital identities, improving the way we exchange value. Value is exchanged through digital signatures, requests for verification and transactions; these transactions then allow a user to gradually build a reputation which can be inspected and verified by other digital identities and value intermediaries." - WISeKey

Become Part of the NFT Event Ticketing Revolution

The team here at SeatlabNFT knows the potential NFT technology has outside of digital artwork. We're working flat out behind the scenes to develop our NFT ticketing platform, which will disrupt the ticketing industry. 

The power of smart contracts and the decentralised nature of blockchain technology means we can give artists and event organisers the tools they need to regain control of the secondary ticketing market, increase their revenue and incentivise fans in ways never before possible. 

Progressive companies like Airbnb, Uber and Revolut have shaken up industries that were the domain of megacorporations for years using new technologies. We feel the time is right for the same to happen in the ticketing industry. Megacorporations are unfairly taking money out of the pockets of artists and event organisers; we're offering an alternative that's 100% free for sellers and even provides ways for them to make additional revenue.

Development is moving fast. We've already given our community a sneak peek at the progress we're making with the SeatlabNFT marketplace's user interface, and we're getting close to announcing when our IDO will take place. So make sure you don't miss out. 

If you want to be kept up to date with everything going on here, keep an eye on our socials. Links below. 

The future is bright for NFT technology, and we're as excited as you to see how it will be used in all industries.

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